Have you ever started to say one thing and then found something entirely different coming out of your mouth? This post was like that. It shifted with the third conversation in a very short period. Each time a powerful, successful man was almost in tears in front of me. I witnessed a deep desire in each of them to create and feel their impact in the world in a measurable way. Yet they felt pinned down by black and white options in front of them.
In each case the key was getting to the core limited belief. Each one had a real fear of disappointing another person because what they wanted was in conflict with someone else. In one case, the internal conflict had a real fear of losing someone they loved if they didn’t do as the other wished. They couldn’t see how to succeed given the constraints they felt were present.
It stood in contrast to a conversation with a woman who said something had to end and it had to end ugly in order for her wishes to be heard. When I suggested it didn’t have to be ugly, she insisted that it did. We had to work to get to the young place that felt if she didn’t hurt them back as much as she had been hurt then she was weak and inconsequential. The men denied their needs to belong and the woman denied the other’s needs as payback for her own being denied.
This Full Moon highlights the place in us where we have been taught to how to belong but at the price of desire denied. Conformity was required for acceptance. Creativity or innovation represents a threat to the status quo. The fear brain loves familiarity. It knows how to navigate it and survive in it. Which is why denying desires became a standard practice in evolution of family and community.
The next 90 days has a focus on co-dependency, isolation and healthy interdependence. Where do you fall on the spectrum? On one end, you sacrifice yourself for another feeling it’s required to keep the connection. The other end there is militant denial of needs that fall outside accepted norms (although who decides the norms is still being decided). Somewhere in the middle is creativity where your desires inform you and the world beautifully, with a little support.
I propose that those desires you have are unique and usually wonderful. (A desire to hurt someone who hurt you needs a deeper dive in order to get to the real wish). Expressing those desires can and must plug in to the world around you. When you contribute the original parts the world is a richer and better place.
The challenge is in how to do that better than most have been taught to do it. Once again, it begs for creativity. There is no right or wrong way to evolve our innovative collaboration. It simply requires enough introspection to get to the core desires there inside you, where they may have languished or been shamefully stood in a corner. Can you, will you go retrieve them?
It requires vulnerability to own all the part of you. Do you know how to make it safe to feel what you feel? If the answer isn’t yes, the next 90 days offer lots of upside potential! Let’s see where the cards and stars can help…
June 24th Capricorn Super Moon
Progress, NOT perfection is the goal here. I woke up to a thread on social media where heat was flying over what is light versus what is dark behavior. I opted out immediately. Not because I don’t care but it’s all too easy to be sucked into the right/wrong good/bad vicious circle. You can’t win there. It was a perfect example of this Full Moon’s gift. Notice what you want to correct, erase, change in another’s behavior and bring it back home.
Judgement that you serve up on others is a learned behavior. It’s where your desires, impulses and natural instincts were judged. Understand this, there can be corrective behavior needed on our impulses! Natural desire is just that, natural, still it is a starting point, not the end goal. Too much or too little correction of what we instinctively feel is less productive than a shaping approach. Think of it as chiseling away at a gorgeous block of marble. If you dynamite imperfections, too much is lost. If you do nothing then the beauty within it remains unformed and unrecognized. Instead of denying desires, work with them so they achieve their full potential.
We can even treat our inner wants as a guidance system we then sculpt into the work of art that is uniquely ‘me’. Each mistake is shaped by what you do with it. How we go after what we want (or don’t go after) is another opportunity to bring more of ourselves to each decision, each day. With a little grace and ease woven into our inner care system we can safely take responsibility for what’s ours and let others do the same or not. We don’t need to ‘correct them’ in order to feel the world is a safe place. We make it safer by starting with internal kindness and strength in what we do.
See others as a chance to discover and go more deeply into your particular nooks and crannies when their behavior lights you up. This Moon cycle opens up the ability to comprehend our own part in things when we take our eyes off the imperfections in others. That’s just a distraction so we don’t examine our own flaws. The Cancer Sun trines Neptune to give us a more compassionate view of those all too human weaknesses. Give yours a good look and turn them into the work of art you are, with a little care, courage and willingness to be seen while you are in process. Choose your friends wisely and let your best self shine, imperfections and all.
June 25th Six of wands
Jupiter starts its retrograde today with friendly aspects to the Moon (what we love and fear losing) so you can more easily see what has purpose in your life. In the end, all that is physical reaches its limits and stops. Spirit is continuous, never ending. So anyplace we are overly attached to the tangible results the next few months will help you successfully up-level your focus. With a tough Moon/Pluto meet up looming, we have to face our resistance to letting go of control. There’s a part of our fear brain that is sure if we are only good enough, powerful enough, rich enough, successful enough, smart enough… we can someone protect ourselves from loss.
This belief drives some pretty bad behaviors as well as the good ones. It’s a poverty of spirit that the Universe wants to help unshackle you from so you can enjoy what is here for you now. When we can sort out how to let fear motivate us to enjoy what is from the fear that keeps us locked into protecting what is at all costs, then we are the victor indeed. Each win becomes a moment fully lived, celebrated and inhaled, knowing if you can achieve this joy once, you can do it again. Don’t worry about staying there on the peak. Trust your body knows what it feels like to expand and live and will bring you back there again on a fresh path, full of new experiences, when we let go.
June 26th The hermit
Moon and Pluto meet up in the early hours Saturday morning, inviting a quiet reflective time that is so helpful for you. Can you give yourself that time? What floats up from the murky depths of you is a lotus that blooms from all the mud. See where your mistakes, failures, shortcomings all add up to a whole human being. When you own your shadow it can no longer own you.
Then you can focus on your gifts and strengths as a means to lift yourself up, and like that beautiful flower, be seen in all your complexity. What I love most about this card is the lamp that the Hermit is holding. For once you have your inner light clear and strong, you can shed light for others to see their way as well. Sometimes all we need is to see another daring to shine to remind us to beam our own.
June 27th Five of Pentacles
Today we have the Moon with Saturn, a perfect pair for the Five of Pentacles. Scarcity mentality is on display today so you can disassemble it. You have your own tailored version of desires denied? This card is the epitome of being unable to connect with what you desire. Obstacles to what you want offer a chance to bond with the desire. When you want what you want enough to overcome any challenge, you bond with it. The shadow side is where ego, greed or fear of failure has you throwing effort after an unworthy desire. It’s not that you long for it, rather you are avoiding something that comes out of not having it. Check carefully and fine tune your guidance system today. It helps immeasurably in coming months.
June 28th Four of Pentacles
We have a nice soup of aspects today to dial up desires and our ability to sort out what is ego, what is need, what is want. It just takes patience and attention. How curious about you are you? Any time you have the four it signals putting things on firm foundation. It also is a warning not to box yourself in with no exits. Choose to lay good groundwork rather than wall yourself off with shoulds and shouldn’ts. It is a soup, so there is a bit of effort to sort out what is what. If you rush to do it, you expend effort for little reward. See if you can give yourself real attention to what you feel and what that feeling has to say about what you want to do with it.
June 29th Four of Wands
This lovely four is the second in a row, highlighting good relationships. Who you spend time with matters. Those closest to us have seen us in our less than shining moments. Through them we set a bar of intimacy in how it feels safe being flawed without it becoming a power play. Saturn Retrograde in the gate of healthy connection means this arena needs a good look and possibly a mop up. How safe do you and your friends feel screwing up with each other? How do you handle it? Can you take personal responsibility safely? Do you accept each other wherever you may start but still encourage each other to do better next time? There is an ease aspect to upgrade this arena starting now. Do take advantage…
June 30th Nine of Cups
Ah, the cosmic green light GO shows up today. Particularly if you have been consciously moving through your past few days, today ‘enlightenment of desires’ is possible. In other words, time to make a heart wish. Make it a big one, a deep longing wish. Leave it open. I like to add ‘I wish to receive this or something better’. That leaves room for the Universe to give me more than I know how to ask for from my current limitations. Then my work is to stay open to receive the wish. Fear wants to look for all things that threaten to derail getting it. Mind those doubts – doubt them if you will.
Learning how to unblock denied desires is a process. Fear likes to limit our expansion into the unknown so it will serve up all kinds of worst case scenarios. Watch them and learn where you shut yourself down and with what story. It doesn’t even have to come from an outside authority. You may do it so well, without noticing you’ve done it. Once you’ve done that, then open up to the big wish. There is vulnerability in expressing that desire. Be present for yourself and the fear that comes with the risk to truly want. Now prepare to receive. Picture what you will feel like. It’s good practice.
July 1st The World
Like someone who’s been starving, if you eat too much and too quickly it comes right back up. After the big wish yesterday it’s natural to throw yourself into trying to ‘do’ something to make it come true. Effort that comes from fear won’t serve. You aren’t going to get any help moving ahead quickly. In fact the opposite is more likely. Big dreams unfold in their own time. Pace yourself, let the anticipation be a way of dialing up delight rather than rushing to act. It’s a new World of possibility unfolding and your body, your nervous system needs time to adjust up. Take a bite at a time out of life today. Savor the morsel and swallow before you take another bite.
July 2nd Strength
Strength is the ability to hold your own no matter what comes towards you. Power is how you assert yourself in the world. As you expand your desires into the world you are likely to attract opposition. How you handle that is the learning curve for the next 90 days as well. How well do you express your desires in ways that helps to fulfill them rather than self limiting behaviors that ensure push back from others?
Actions have consequences and as we express desires, we learn to work with those consequences. How well do you handle what others send your way? This is a time to let negative consequences from the past teach us how our actions impact others. This isn’t to change our desires, rather to learn how to bring them forward in a more thoughtful way. Commit to owning what you feel and then sharing them in a more integrative way. It takes practice and you’ll get plenty this summer.
July 3rd Seven of wands
If you choose to pay attention you can really break free of an uncomfortable pattern today. Like the light going on in a dark room, you suddenly see with clarity where you needlessly defend yourself. Our fear brain overestimates the threat and underestimate you in order to survive. However it also has us making monsters out of ordinary people having a bad moment. When you let the light shine, you realize where you spend too much time fighting battles you didn’t need to fight. This Truth really will set you free from battles that don’t need to be.
July 4th Princess of cups. (Independence day)
While the Universe serves up a stirring celestial set of fireworks the first half of the day, the message is to let your creativity guide whatever unfolds. Remember those imperfect moments, when met with love and firm guidance, help you sculpt beauty out of anything that shows up. People may feel restless, irritable, picky even this morning. Breathe, allow the feelings and move through them. Decide how you want to shape those feelings. One man trims the lawn to get his irritation out on the helpless grass blades. The lawn looks nice, he’s happier and the mood passes. What can you do with your range of emotions today?
July 5th Queen of swords
This busy intelligent queen is one that signals to proceed with caution. I always picture her as an air traffic controller with immense amounts of data headed her way that she organizes brilliantly for high stakes. The Jupiter square to the Moon means the devil is in the details today. Question, clarify, double check whatever you think you’ve heard. Reread what. you think you’ve typed. It’s all to often to serve up information with an edge today, because it feels like so much is at stake. Pay attention to the tone, fact check everything and trust the whole picture will emerge.
July 6th Prince of swords
The aspects and the cards agree, where do you have deeply defended boundaries that keep risk away but also shuts out love? This Knight is the fastest moving and highlights where our mind rushes in to separate us from pain with logic. The problem is, our heart gets abandoned in the process. Thoughtful maturity applied to our heart’s desires can help bring about a fully formed wish; the fearful avoidance of loss only tends to bring about a different loss. When your mind races ahead with all the possible threats to your happiness today, harness it. Give it a job to do in service of your dreams. Make it hunt for all the signs that your dreams are possible. Separate yourself from your mental isolation defense instead of from your longings.
July 7th Five of swords
Well congratulations on moving from strong over-reaction into self doubt instead. This pesky five is all the little nagging criticisms and self doubts that slow forward movement. Now the good news is the aspects today help us broaden our view of the what’s happening. It’s a little easier to understand how another might feel, especially when we’ve taken care to examine our own wants and needs more deeply. What is happening is not just ‘information’ but we see where various details inform opinions, actions based on how we interpret the data. We shape our story based on the fact and how we apply it. Any place that doubts you today, take it apart like legos and put it back in a way that better serves you and your day.
July 8th Two of wands
The goal today is to empathize but do not rescue one another. This two is where shared ideas can spark a bonfire. Whether it consumes or warms depends on the foundation and how you manage the heat. Notice any effort to blame. When we blame we are in a powerless state, a young place, where we want others to change behavior to make us feel better, safer, happier. No judgement if you start there, rather walk yourself into the adult space at your own pace. From here you can ask for what you want or need without obligating someone else to meet those needs. If you find yourself on the receiving end of someone else’s blame, have compassion and hold adult ground. Once they feel safely seen in their powerless fear they can better walk themselves out using you as a guide.
